"Sorry, grandpa. I was late." Kai entered the kitchen in his chef's garb.
"You're indeed late, fucking brat! Cut those cabbages on the corner!" Marcus ordered with a booming voice. Even so, his saliva miraculously stayed in his mouth and didn't go anywhere.
"On it!" He replied as he tied his hair in a ponytail. With skillful movement, he started to chop the cabbages Into thin slices. It wasn't before long until he finished 5 cabbages and moved on to the next vegetable.
The morning life of a chef in a restaurant was busy.
pαпdα-ňᴏνêι·сóМ As a chef, he would begin preparing dishes before opening. The waitresses, Mai and Anna, arrived shortly after he began cooking and tidying up the front store. Amber also joined them, and they opened the restaurant at 7 AM before everyone went to work.
Tuesday morning wasn't the busiest day for the restaurant, but he still got three to four regular customers. This time, a person that Amber mentioned earlier returned again, sitting on the corner of the restaurant.
'He's here again?' Kai thought as he noticed the man with short dark hair and a black suit looking at the menu. 'Well, maybe he likes my dish.'
He kept an optimistic mind. Because the customer was unusual, Kai gestured to Amber to get his order again. She made an okay sign and strode over to his table to take the order.
"Have you decided on your order?" She asked politely, but the man flinched slightly, something that she noticed.
"A-Ah, yes. Can I have some porridge, please?" The man replied.
"Sure." She nodded, jutting down the order on the notebook. "Anything else?"
"Yes, actually." The man coughed into his hand, bracing himself. "Can I talk with the young man? I… have something to ask, actually. O-Of course, I have no ill intention. Please don't worry."
"Hmm…" Amber hummed, narrowing her eyes. She tried to know the man's intention, but it didn't seem like he was lying. If he could act like that and even nervously gulped his saliva in front of her, he deserved an oscar. "Alright. I will ask him. Please return at lunch to have your answer."
"Sure… I can wait."
"I guess that's all your order then, have a nice day!" She cheerfully exclaimed and returned to the small window. She noticed Kai was waiting for her near it as Marcus sat on the corner because the order had all been taken out except for one.
"What is his order?" Kai asked.
"One porridge, please. Also…" Amber paused for a second before grinning. "He wants to talk to us. I think it's the chance to acquaint ourselves with the Slayers, Kai. What do you think?"
"That's…" Kai didn't expect the man to want to talk to him as well. Well, looking at what he did in the past 3 days, maybe it wasn't surprising. He also wanted to explore the Supernatural World as fast as he could, so this was a good chance while the Slayer was still civil.
"Alright. Ask him to return after lunch. I will meet him at that time in the back alley."
"I will tell him that."
***
After lunchtime, customers started to dwindle, and the restaurant was empty. It was time for them to rest until around 3 PM before they started to prepare for dinner.
Kai also had time to rest as Marcus was still in the kitchen.
"Grandpa, I need to step out for a while with Amber. Can you take care of the preparation alone for a while?" He asked, taking off the rubber band he used to tie his hair and ruffling it, throwing the sweat accumulated to the ground outside the kitchen.
"Ah?! Of course, I can." Marcus chuckled. "Just get out there, brat. Enjoy your little date. Don't want to keep the lady waiting." The old man pointed at the small window where Amber peeked her head and smiled cutely at him.
He really couldn't fix the misunderstanding, no? Marcus was adamant that Amber was his girlfriend, while she actually was just a Mythical Beast he contracted.
Scratching the back of his hair and walking to the front, he muttered, "Well, that's a convenient excuse to allow Amber to stay here."
Stepping outside of the kitchen area, he was greeted by Amber, who stood right outside the door. "Let's go." He said, looking at Amber. "He's in the back alley behind the restaurant, right?"
"Yes. I will go with you this time. Fufufu, Grandpa said it is our little date."
"Not that it is really a date." He retorted, walking out of his restaurant with his left hand in his pocket. Mai greeted him, and he raised his free hand in response. "We're meeting a Slayer. It can also be a fight date."
"It won't escalate to that." She leaned forward and put her hands behind her back. "I assure you."
Kai glanced at Amber. He really wondered where her confidence came from. Was it her strength? Or her experience? Whatever it was, he hoped that wasn't the case too. He wasn't a battle crazed person who loved to fight at any given chance.
"I hope so."
The back alley was full of bags of trash. It was a temporary disposal place to place trash produced by the restaurant and the stall on the side, mostly bottles of beer or food scraps.
Even so, the trash was neatly placed on the side so it didn't litter on the ground. In that back alley, a man with a black suit had been waiting for them. He was as tall as Kai and a bit taller than Amber, probably around 180cm.
He lit a cigarette and puffed the smoke of it while holding it with his left hand.
Kai narrowed his eyes slightly, becoming more serious as he stepped into the back alley.
"Slayer." He called out to the man, and he turned around. His eyes were calm, and there was no hint of surprise even though Kai called him by a name that was unknown to normal people. Meaning the man had at least investigated himself and knew what he did. "What do you want from me?" He continued.
His tone was still friendly, but there was a hint of authority in it. The man tossed the cigarette in his hand to the ground, stomping it with his feet.
"First of all, my name is Griffin." He started with an introduction. His voice was calm, or at least he tried to appear so.
"Griffin? As in the creature with the half-eagle head and half-lion body?" Kai asked, a bit excited because a member of a Supernatural World spoke out a familiar name he had heard in the book.
"Indeed. That's only my code name. Sorry, but I won't tell you my real name unless I trust you. I don't want any trouble with my ordinary life."
"Good point." He nodded, "Just call me Chef then, though I have no doubt you know my real name. I have no fancy codename yet." He added.
"Alright." The man made no fuss and readily agreed mainly because he noticed a sharp golden gaze from the girl beside Kai.
"So?" Kai pressed. "We have introduced ourselves. Please tell me why you want to talk to me. I need to return to the kitchen and help the old man to prepare for the next batch of customers."
"A-Alright. Actually…" Griffin seemed to hesitate a bit to speak. He bit his lower lips slightly, then continued. "I just want to hear about the troublemakers from two days ago and… about what happened yesterday."
"…" Narrowing his eyes, he observed the man. It didn't seem like he was lying. Turning around, he saw Amber nodding her head.
"Alright," Kai replied, smiling a little at Griffin. "In exchange, why don't you tell me something interesting too?"
Griffin fell into deep thought, holding his chin. He considered Kai's offer seriously. Something interesting, he said.
'What kind of thing is interesting for a man accompanied by a Phoenix?' He asked in his mind, but there was no answer he could provide to himself.
However, he really needed to know about what happened.
'I will just ask him what interests him later.'
So he answered.
"Deal."
"Nice." Kai's lips curled up into a happy smile.
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